&lt;i&gt;Imitatio Christi&lt;/i&gt; and the holy folly of divine violence: The church as ultimate criminal

Ja Meylahn

doi:10.4314/actat.v34i2.3

Abstract

The calling of the church is to follow Christ ( imitatio Christi ). What does this calling entail? Following Žižek’s and Derrida’s interpretation of Benjamin’s interpretation of law and violence, the paper will argue that the call to follow Christ is not to subvert the law, but as Paul argues - Christ came to destroy the law. In this article, Christ will be interpreted as one who did not counter this violence of the law (state-maintaining violence) with a counter violence of state-forming violence, but completely undermined the justification of both forms of violence (state-forming and state-maintaining) with a divine violence. If the Christ event is read as an exemplary narrative of the post-metaphysics in the linguistic turn in the work of Derrida, this opens up new possibilities for both theology as well as the role of the church within the context of a postmodern world, and these possibilities will be explored.

Highlights

Can postmodern theology live in the churches2? Can Atheism (Derrida’s Atheism) live in the churches? Yes and no, in response to both questions
I would even be bolder and argue that it cannot only live in the church, but that such atheism could be the theology or perhaps Christology of the church, following Ernst Bloch who said that only a Christian can be atheist and only an atheist can be a Christian (Bloch 1970:10)
In this sense postmodern or radical theology can be the gift to the church, but gift in the dual sense, as both gift to the church and Gift of the church

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Can postmodern theology live in the churches2? Can Atheism (Derrida’s Atheism) live in the churches? Yes and no, in response to both questions. I would even be bolder and argue that it cannot only live in the church, but that such atheism could be the theology or perhaps Christology of the church, following Ernst Bloch who said that only a Christian can be atheist and only an atheist can be a Christian (Bloch 1970:10). In this sense postmodern or radical theology can be the gift to the church, but gift in the dual sense, as both gift to the church and Gift (poison) (see Derrida 2008) of the church. It needs tradition and institutions so as to haunt these traditions and institutions by continually knocking on their doors seeking hospitality

The church called to follow Christ

THE INCARNATION

THE CRUCIFIXION

THE RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION